Tag Archives: storm front

A scene straight out of a sci-fi movie as transformers blow up in east Fort Worth

Maybe it’s just me, but dang! Seems like the weather here in North Texas is getting weirder and weirder! I mean, first we have the Great Snowstorm of 2010, followed by the ice this past winter. And now this year it seems like we’re having some extravagantly severe thunderstorms, with tornadoes happening every day last week and this week’s outrageous lighting storms.

I live in Fort Worth, on the east side, and on Tuesday night we had a pretty strong storm front move through. It didn’t last long, really, but for a couple of hours, the city seemed to be really getting hit hard by lightning. In fact, according to this report in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, about 210 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes were reported between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. that night, with another 120 reported the following hour, between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m.

And apparently, a lot of those lightning strikes were hitting transformers — the kinds on the electrical poles, not the kind that are vehicles that turn into giant alien robots. But watch this video — which appears to have been recorded from a high-rise location in downtown Fort Worth, looking east toward the area just north of I-30 and was posted to YouTube by BrianLuenser — and it looks like it could have been a scene straight out of the next big sci-fi movie. We can call it “Close Encounters — The Fort Worth Way.”

It’s pretty frightening sometimes to realize the power of nature, but at the same time, frighteningly beautiful.

Just so you known, WFAA.com is forecasting more thunderstorms today — but hey, the weekend looks great!